Course Descriptions

A2J Author, Law School Clinics and Access to Justice

A2J Author can turn court forms into automated documents for self-represented litigants. The session will explore A2J Author projects beyond document assembly that can have a great impact on the delivery of legal services and access to justice for self-represented litigants. A new TIG grant will support law school clinics teaching students to use A2J Author for legal aid websites. This justice and technology clinic model has been successful at Chicago-Kent College of Law for the past two years and is ready for universal adoption by all law schools.

Speakers:
John Mayer, Center for Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction
Dina Nikitaides, Center for Access to Justice & Technology at Chicago-Kent School of Law
Ron Staudt, Chicago-Kent School of Law

Advocating Against Displacement: Using State and Federal Laws to Protect Private and Public Housing Residents

When community (re)development activities are “successful”, it is commonly at the expense of lower-income and/or minority households. Early monitoring of public housing plans to dispose of, demolish and/or convert public housing and anti-displacement planning is crucial to protect clients from the harmful effects of gentrification and the loss of affordable public housing. When households are displaced, steps must be taken to ensure that they receive the maximum assistance and payment required by law. This interactive workshop will explore the different state and federal relocation statutes, and identify how HUD programs and state and local community development activity trigger relocation and replacement housing obligations. Using mini-case studies and calculation exercises, panelists will explore current issues and concerns affecting low-income residents, including waivers, evictions and undocumented status, among other things.

Speakers:
Catherine Bishop, National Housing Law Project
Deb Collins, Public Interest Law Project
Lynn Martinez, Western Center on Law & Poverty
Jay Smith, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development

Beyond Stress Management—Maintaining Passion!

The legal profession, particularly litigation, can be a highly stressful profession. Stress manifests in multiple ways. However, within the legal profession, stress and substance abuse has been a cause of concern. In the nonprofit arena in particular, the stressors of legal work are coupled with the need to manage effective advocacy and/or policy programs while conducting high level litigation under a tight budget. This workshop will use innovative participatory methods and the experiences of those in the room to focus on specific stressors. We will place them in a framework to understand and better deal with them and their effects (“stress”). We also will discuss how to go beyond individual “stress management” to effective organizational solutions that benefit all (e.g., life-work balance activities, effective team management, and collaborations with community-based organizations to effectively meet advocacy goals). Participants will also receive a list of resources to help them with ongoing activities in their own lives and organizations.

Civil Rights and Access to Courts and Legal Services: Language and Disability Rights of Clients

Date: Thursday, June 7Time: 1:00 - 2:30 pmMCLE: 1.5 Hours

Ensuring justice for all means ensuring that clients do not have access barriers stemming from Limited English Proficiency or disabilities. What role can advocacy play in the changing landscape of court access? This workshop will briefly review the key legal obligations for language access and disability accommodations, as well as review recent developments and best practices for legal offices and courts.

Santa Clara County Superior Court collaborates with various local agencies to provide day-of-court dispute resolution services in a variety of cases such as small claims, non-violent civil harassment and domestic violence, unlawful detainer, family law, and hopefully in the near future, probate matters. Speakers will review the various program details including identifying the partners and bringing them to the table, determining the appropriate cases, securing funds in difficult fiscal times, sustainability, and alternative ways of providing resources, such as recruiting law students in mediation courses. Due to the controversy surrounding offering alternative dispute resolution services in civil harassment and domestic violence cases, a judicial officer will speak to the screening process used to determine whether to refer a case for such services. Unequal bargaining power, intimidation, and difficult personalities/personality disorders in ADR will also be discussed.

Debt and Debt Collection: How Legal Services Can Help Debtors Help Themselves

Debt is perhaps the only near-universal problem for the client communities served by legal services organizations. This presentation will summarize several new debt-related efforts at Neighborhood Legal Services of Los Angeles County (NLSLA). Potential services to be discussed include: 1) Helping clients who have not yet been sued for their debts to assert their rights by slowing or ceasing pre-litigation debt collection efforts; 2) Providing information and advice on bankruptcy and other potential resolutions to major debt problems, 3) Presenting "answer workshops" to help debtors who have been sued to avoid default and understand the law suit process, and; 4) Creating channels to debtor-friendly pro bono mediation programs, with or without court assistance. The session will also include a roundtable component for attendees to provide feedback and discuss their own attempts to deal with their clients' debt-related issues.

Delivery of Legal Services Through Limited Scope Representation

The panel will present on the topic of providing legal services through limited scope representation, also known as unbundling, to expand legal assistance, and even representation, for people with limited resources. By providing focused legal services at critical junctures in legal proceedings, we can increase access to legal services and achieve positive results for the client. The ethics of this delivery model will also be addressed.

Delivery of Services to Latino and Southeast Asian Client Communities

Devising a legal strategy of education, advocacy, and legal representation for monolingual immigrant populations can be very challenging. The effective delivery of such services must combine a knowledge base of various areas of substantive law and how they interplay with one another, effective outreach techniques for low-income communities, cultural competence, and sensitivity. This panel will seek to offer some experience-based knowledge in advocating within Latino and Southeast Asian (particularly Vietnamese) communities and provide some possible strategies to increase the effectiveness of legal advocacy. The ethical requirements of legal aid attorneys versus ethical dilemmas of representing low-wage monolingual workers will also be discussed (as it relates to cultural competence, legal strategies that reflect a deep and sensitive understanding of the clients' culture, the need for wrap around services for clients, and ethical issues as they relate to immigration status, etc.)

Effective Representation and Assistance to Self-Represented Clients in SSI Hearings

Date: Thursday, June 7Time: 1:00 - 2:30 pmMCLE: 1.5 Hours

This program will train advocates in effective techniques for administrative hearings and also address preparing unrepresented litigants to deal with their administrative hearings. Specific examples relate to SSI hearings, but this is not intended as a presentation of the substantive law pertaining to SSI eligibility and the material presented would generally be applicable to many other types of administrative hearings, especially those involving public benefits.

Emerging Challenges in Medical-Legal Partnerships

The medical-legal partnership (MLP) is a rapidly growing place-based model for the delivery of services. With this model comes its own unique set of challenges arising out of the non-traditional setting from how best to improve the screening and referral of patients from providers to legal advocate, to how best to deliver a seemingly endless array of services that such patient-clients need. This panel will present a variety of systems used by MLPs, highlighting the referral process, pro bono projects that extend the reach of the MLP, and even discuss the use of apps and technology in the clinic setting. As many legal services providers turn to such forms of place-based advocacy, such continued trial, error, and innovation, is required to maximize services to the client.

Speakers:
Jen Flory, Neighborhood Legal Services of Los Angeles County
Brooke Heymach, Legal Aid Society of San Mateo County Peninsula Family Advocacy Program

Ethics for Self-Help Service Providers

This session will train trainers to be able to provide up to four hours of review of ethical requirements for paralegals and attorneys working in court-based self-help programs, including Family Law Facilitator and self-help centers operated by court staff or legal aid staff. Panelists will engage in an interactive discussion of hypothetical ethical dilemmas, including excerpts from CA Rule of Court 10.960: Guidelines for Operation of Court-Based Self-Help Centers in CA; Code of Ethics for Court Employees; Judicial Code of Ethics; and the Business & Professions Code.

California prison realignment will release more individuals with a criminal record which will impact federally assisted housing. This session will discuss in the admission context the rules about prior criminal activity, the programs to which such rules apply, and strategies to get families admitted and to improve local policies. Possible challenges and/or improvements to banning and trespass policies adopted by some providers of federally assisted housing that prevent residents with a criminal record from associating with their family members or other guests will also be discussed.

This session will provide cutting-edge information about California's implementation of federal health care reform under the "Affordable Care Act of 2010" (ACA) and the opportunities and challenges the ACA provides for access to health care for low-income Californians. The session will provide an overview of the new private health insurance marketplace (the "Exchange"), the creation of a a seamless "no wrong door" single application for health coverage, and changes in Medi-Cal eligibility rules for existing and new beneficiaries. The session will also identify opportunities as well as potential barriers in enrolling California's diverse population and discuss the role that legal services advocates can play in helping to connect low-income individuals to the new coverage options. Advocates will learn and discuss strategies for protecting and promoting access to affordable health care for low-income persons with disabilities, seniors, communities of color and immigrants.

Immigration and Family Law Issues for Domestic Violence Victims

This session will help advocates assisting immigrant victims of domestic violence. Topics to be covered include recent developments in immigration law regarding removal for restraining order violations, the impact of child custody arrangements and disputes on immigration relief, social implications of deportation on families, cutting edge developments in asylum claims related to domestic violence, and more.

In 2011, California began to build its "Bridge to Health Care Reform" by implementing a new 1115 Medicaid Waiver to expand health care services to low-income populations and to change the way services are delivered to seniors and people with disabilities. This interactive discussion will introduce practitioners to the two aspects of the Waiver that have resulted in major changes in the health care services available to low-income clients, while engaging them about the challenges and successes of these changes at the local level. This includes moving senior and disabled Medi-Cal recipients into mandatory managed care and new federal-county partnerships that have begun to implement expanded health care safety net programs for low-income adults who are not eligible for Medi-Cal.

Speakers:
Abbi Coursolle, National Health Law Program
Kim Lewis, National Health Law Program
Michelle Melden, Legal Aid Society of San Diego

In Other Words: Community Interpreting in Legal Services

Community interpreters work with clients in various settings, acting as cultural bridges between service providers and clients. Unlike court interpreting, community interpreters must personally interact with clients and understand their cultural backgrounds, while adhering to a code of conduct. This session describes key elements of community interpreting, applicable codes of conduct, and how effective community interpreting can operate to foster equal access to legal services for culturally and linguistically diverse clients.

Incorporating Technology to Prepare High Quality and Cost-Effective Pleadings in a Conservatorship Clinic and Other Self-Help Settings

Using LawHelp Interactive, Bet Tzedek’s Conservatorship Clinic has worked with the AOC to implement a program that can populate the forms for a conservatorship in minutes. More than 40 pages of forms must be filed for each case, but the Clinic has the ability to file thousands annually with two staff attorneys and several volunteers. Statewide, the main users of online forms are family law facilitators. This workshop will review what they are doing in the self-help context, and give examples of how other legal non-profits across the country are using similar tools to meet the growing demand for legal assistance.

Increasing Board Engagement Through a Self-Assessment Process and New Governance Modes

The session will cover how legal services programs around the state are using OneJustice's board roles and responsibilities and Board Self-Assessment Project to increase board engagement and performance. A 2008 Urban Institute study of mid-sized nonprofit boards revealed high levels of CEO dissatisfaction and low levels of board engagement in several key areas of board responsibility. OneJustice's Board Self-Assessment Project is a response to low board performance shown by similar executive assessments of boards at California legal services nonprofits. The Project engages executives and boards in evaluating board performance in nine core responsibilities tied to the ABA standards and LSC performance criteria and encourages boards to intentionally operate in fiduciary, strategic, and generative modes and mission-based governance.

It Takes a Town: Using Holistic Service Models to Expand Organizational Capacity and Better Serve Vulnerable Populations

Cultural competency and holistic service provision has become something of a byword these days in the legal aid field, but what do such services actually look like? This program will attempt to answer that question by using examples from past cases and discussing accumulated best practices to demonstrate how organizations can develop their own, individualized culturally competent models. Specifically, panelists will demonstrate how using such models can help attorneys and legal service organizations better serve vulnerable immigrant populations. Panelists will explain how culturally competent service models are especially beneficial when dealing with domestic violence and family law cases and suggest ways to begin thinking about, developing, and implementing cultural competency as an organization (including building linguistic capacity, utilizing a holistic service model, developing collaborative networks among diverse service providers, and working with community-based agencies). Additionally, panelists will discuss how to better interact with attorneys and legal aid workers across the non-profit, private, and government sectors and how to address what may be some potential misunderstandings &/or assumptions of the other party or counsel which could arise and how such occurrences can affect your handling of legal matters for your client.

Judicial Careers for Legal Services Attorneys

Date: Thursday, June 7Time: 10:15 - 11:45 amMCLE: None

Adding judges to the bench who have firsthand experience with the needs of the poor - such as current and former legal services attorneys and pro bono volunteers - could dramatically change the landscape for legal services' client populations. Traditionally, most California judges have experience as prosecutors or private practitioners whose backgrounds do not prepare them for addressing the civil needs of the indigent population. Every step of the process of securing a judgeship remains shrouded in mystery: from timely learning about judicial vacancies to submitting an application for a judgeship. This panel is intended to teach attorneys how the process works and how they can best prepare themselves to be selected for the bench.

Legal Ethics Goes to the Movies

Movies — and even an occasional TV series — provide delicious slices of humanity to study legal ethics. Using film clips and small group discussion, this session explores ethical issues that arise in a public interest law practice. At session’s end, you will leave with practical tips on meeting the constant and perpetual rendezvous with ethics in your work.

Speakers:
Rosemary French, Benchmark Institute

Little Known Consumer Statutes

Litigants frequently seek assistance with consumer issues but are unaware of additional remedies and protections that may be available. This session will review little known consumer statutes that include, for example, treble damages for unpaid wages, damages for failure to release funds from escrow, treble damages against an unlicensed contractor, quadruple damages for a bad tow, treble damages for bad checks, and even when you can serve the landlord at the bank!

Two law librarians will show how they answer pro per questions, from the initial issue definition to research materials used, to follow up skills such as creating a pleading. Four different subject areas will be examined – dissolution, eviction, contract litigation, and OSC/ex parte motions. By applying the techniques taught in this session, pro pers will have a more realistic expectation of services from each self-help center or library visited.

Speakers:
Sarah Eggleston, Riverside County Law Library
Annette Heath, Kern County Law Library

Maximize e-help to Conserve Staff Resources for Small Claims Advisors and Other Self-Help Providers

Learn about a simple, effective and free solution to help more people remotely and have more staff time to provide in-person and phone help to those without access to the internet. This session will demonstrate that e-mail assistance can be better than phone help. Contra Costa County successfully implemented this service delivery method in 2006, and when state budget cuts required staff reduction, the Small Claims Advisory Service reduced hours, but was able to provide assistance to a growing number of requests from the public. Santa Clara County's Small Claims Advisor added e-mail service because of budget cuts, and by the second month the number of clients helped increased by 34% while the calls dropped by 53% compared to the previous year.

Navigating Anti-Discrimination Laws in Housing

This interactive session explores discrimination issues that arise in housing, including the landlord-tenant relationship and public accommodations. Among other things, panelists will discuss protected classes under fair housing laws, reasonable accommodations and accessible housing units for people with disabilities. The session will evaluate innovative methods of engaging pro bono assistance in advocacy, eviction defense and affirmative fair housing litigation.

Private Employers, Public Projects

Date: Thursday, June 7Time: 4:30 - 5:30 pmMCLE: 1 Hour

The increasing prevalence of government contracting of public services raises new issues in the workplace. Many low-wage workers work for private contractors who provide public services such as transit, security and sanitation. These employees have recourse to the public agencies who ultimately decide their working conditions. Panelists will provide information about this little-known and underutilized strategy to address violations of labor and employment laws or health and safety provisions, and identify potential pitfalls when dealing with private entities who provide public services.

Speakers:
Ben Lunch, Neyhart, Anderson, Flynn & Grosboll

Professionalizing Management of Legal Services Nonprofits - Lessons Learned from the First year of the OneJustice Executive Fellowship

Executives and leaders of legal services nonprofits face an unprecedented shift in their need to manage their organizations. No longer can they depend on reliable sources of funding and past ways of doing business; executives need to build a new set of skills around creating effective business models based on a more nuanced understanding of fundraising, finance, governance, communications and strategic planning. Add to this the challenge of attractive and retaining top talent. LAAC's 2009 study found that retention of attorneys is a major issue facing the legal services sector. The study also found that a significant success factor is the ability of the executive to manage, supervise and communicate effectively with staff. OneJustice's Executive Fellowship program, a 10-month intensive program in nonprofit management taught by faculty from the academic, for-profit and larger nonprofit sector, offers executives and emerging leaders the skills they need to thrive and lead with confidence and success. This session will explore what OneJustice and the Fellows who have (and are) participating in the program have learned about the tools that need to be brought to effective management within our sector, as well as the various skills and knowledge base that are required for the near- and long-term.

Professional Responsibility for the Legal Services Practitioner, Including Working with Difficult Clients

Date: Thursday, June 7Time: 4:30 - 5:30 pmMCLE: 1 Hour Legal Ethics

This session will review governing Rules of Professional Conduct and other authorities that are relevant to the legal services practitioner including limited scope service, pro bono representation, conflicts of interest, client relationships, competence, "ghost" writing, relationships with opposing counsel and the court, unauthorized practice of law, technology issues, and other subjects including common problems that arise when dealing with demanding or difficult clients, challenging client circumstances, and ways to ensure that the issues are addressed consistently.

Speakers:
Robert Hawley, The State Bar of California
Toby Rothschild, Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles

Public Benefits Advocacy for People Who Are Homeless and Disabled

With high unemployment and record numbers of people applying for all types of public benefits, the need for high quality public benefits advocacy is increasing. The Homeless Action Center (HAC) has developed innovative ways to obtain successful results for even the most difficult to reach populations during its 21 years of service. This session features HAC staff attorneys who will share their strategies for obtaining income and access to health care for people who are homeless and disabled.

Registration and Enforcement of California Family Orders in Mexico

The presentation will provide an overview of the legal instruments that are needed in order to register and enforce California judgments in family law cases. It will focus on the issues of child and spousal support, custody, visitation, property, and debts. It will discuss how international reciprocity commitments are applied in family law cases. It will identify the governmental agencies in Mexico that can assist us with registering and enforcing California Judgments. Also in this session, attendees will be given information on the several resources available in order to locate a noncustodial parent for child support services.

Speakers:
Guillermo Fernandez Villalobos, Superior Court of California, County of Imperial
Hon. Juan Ulloa, Superior Court of California, County of Imperial
Reeah Yoo, Superior Court of California, County of Imperial

Slavery of Spouses: Creating Strategies to Identify and Combat Servile Marriage as a Form of Human Trafficking

This session aims to identify the intersections between domestic violence and human trafficking, particularly as it manifests in forced and servile marriage. This workshop will: 1) provide tools to improve identification of cases where victims have been subjected to both domestic violence and human trafficking; 2) improve ability to identify servile marriage cases; 3) identify family law and immigration legal remedies for these victims; and 4) discuss strategies and best practices for how to provide comprehensive legal and social services for such clients.

Solving Problems Together: Teaming Up Lawyers and Social Workers

For many low-income clients, having a lawyer alone is simply not enough. Social workers can provide clients with the resources to obtain counseling, housing, and long-term employment. And once clients receive extensive social services, outcomes in family court also tend to improve dramatically. In this training, panelists will present examples of such positive collaboration between social workers and lawyers. We will also discuss commonalities and differences between law and social work practices, with a focus on concrete strategies for managing ethically-based conflicts that may arise between law and social work practices, with a focus on concrete strategies for managing ethically-based conflicts that may arise between lawyers and social workers. Panelists will explore two specific examples of how lawyers and social workers are collaborating to deliver a more holistic model of services: in family law cases and in a family caregiver project.

Using Technology to Assist More Self-Represented Litigants

An increasing number of courts are working in partnership with nonprofit legal services to develop service models that use technology to help self-represented litigants. This workshop will highlight the Domestic Abuse Self-Help Project (DASH)--a collaborative between the Administrative Office of the Courts, the Los Angeles Superior Court, and Neighborhood Legal Services of Los Angeles County (NLSLA)--that is providing resources to domestic abuse survivors with a combination of staff and online tools using LawHelp Interactive. The DASH collaborative serves four self-help centers and helps over 3,000 domestic abuse survivors to file temporary restraining order petitions annually. Other self-help models in states such as Texas and South Carolina that are using this same technology also will be reviewed.

We're Not the World: Utilizing Cultural Competency to Become a Better Attorney and Service Provider

Cultural competency and holistic service provision has become something of a byword these days in the legal aid field, but what do such services actually look like? This program will attempt to answer that question by using examples from past cases and discussing accumulated best practices to demonstrate how organizations can develop their own, individualized culturally competent models. Specifically, panelists will demonstrate how using such models can help attorneys and legal service organizations better serve vulnerable immigrant populations. Panelists will explain how culturally competent service models are especially beneficial when dealing with domestic violence and family law cases and suggest ways to begin thinking about, developing, and implementing cultural competency as an organization (including building linguistic capacity, utilizing a holistic service model, developing collaborative networks among diverse service providers, and working with community-based agencies). Though the program will use panelists' past work with the South Asian population in the Bay Area as a case study, the model developed can be transferred to other immigrant communities, and participants will hopefully leave with a tangible idea or blueprint of how to do so.

Working Effectively with Court Interpreters to Provide Meaningful Access - the Basics

Date: Thursday, June 7Time: 2:45 - 4:15 pmMCLE: 1.5 Hours

The role of court interpreters, kinds of interpreters, interpreter ethics and protocols, basic modes of interpretation, and the flow of an interpreting session when working with an interpreter will be presented in this session. There also will be an interactive Q & A for participants to discuss specific experiences and cases related to language access needs, as well as misperceptions commonly held by other participants in the court process.

Working with Pro Bono Volunteers to Advance Impact Litigation and Advocacy

Date: Friday, June 8Time: 8:30 - 10:00 amMCLE: 1.5 Hours

This session presents an innovative approach to developing fact-intensive impact advocacy relating to the administration of a county General Relief program -- via collaboration between a law student organization, a legal services field program, a legal services support center, and a law school pro bono program. Using a case study format, the program presents a model wherein students interview homeless persons, take field declarations, and give referrals to Legal Aid Society of Orange County. Western Center on Law and Poverty provides training on the scope of inquiry and declaration skills, gives feedback on declarations taken in the field, and incorporates student findings into ongoing impact advocacy against the county General Relief program. The presentation highlights student contributions to impact advocacy, supervision arrangements, and law school support.

Speakers:
Anna Davis, UC Irvine School of Law
Carly Edelstein, UC Irvine School of Law
Stephanie Haffner, Western Center on Law & Poverty
Jessica Hodgkins, UC Irvine School of Law
Crystal Sims, Legal Aid Society of Orange County

Working with Veterans, De-Mystifying VA Benefits

This program will provide participants with the rudiments of veteran cultural competency, a brief tutorial on VA benefits eligibility, and an overview of VA disability compensation and pension benefits. The interaction between VA benefits and other public benefits also will be discussed.